Tuesday, June 23rd—Day 4

Tuesday, June 23rd—Day 4
  The day started out more relaxed than the past few ones. We didn't have to get up at 4:30 or be woken up for nothing. We woke up about 6.

Breakfast was a choice to either eat French toast or pancake. There also were the honey buns, strawberry pop-tarts, and things of that sort too. I chose to eat French toast. It was yummy!

  After that, we transitioned into devotions and prayer time. I remember feeling refreshed and grateful to have devos. Discussing and praying with a partner was a wonderful way to get to know someone we might've not been very acquainted to as well. Our prayer prompt to help us get started was to pray for our brother/sister in Christ in their walk of faith and for each of us to open up to learning more about Christ for the whole week.

We all next transitioned into setting up for VBS. We cleaned the building. There were people who swept, others mopped, and still others sanitized the bathrooms. Once we finished cleaning, we had a wee bit of time to relax before the students arrived.

The students ended up starting to arrive at 10:30.  For lunch, we ate hot dogs and chips. After all of us had eaten, we had a little time before worship rally. The students played Simon Says. We finally got started and began our day with worship rally.

Next, we all split up into each group. They were grouped slightly different from Monday. We had a group of 5 and 6 year olds, a group for 7-9 year olds, and a 10 and up group. The 5 and 6 age group had 7 year olds the day before, but this had created a large group that was very difficult to handle. On Monday, that group consisted of about 25 kids and were reduced to maybe about 12. That was very helpful to the leaders in their group.
My group consisted of the older students. Each day was a different order of the classes than the previous day. On this day, we went to music, abstinence, Bible study, and last but not least, rec.

Sarah taught the Bible study class that day. She taught them about Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego choosing to eat differently than the king and his men. They ate healthy food and drank only water. God had wanted them to do so. After 10 days of eating healthy and drinking only water, Daniel and his friends looked better than the king's men. The king's men had eaten the rich food of the king's and drank wine. This showed that God is concerned with our bodies. We need to eat healthily instead of rich food and wine. Sarah's teaching went pretty well. She was done quite quickly though. We decided to play games to keep them occupied. We played the Name Game and then the game called Concentration.

Once VBS was completed for the day, Emily and I rode on the big bus with some students to drop them off. Then, we came back to the church for a little while. We went over to the school and cleaned quite a bit there.
After taking showers, we ate dinner at the church again. The food team had prepared Lasagna for us. It was delicious!

Later, we went on the tour the adults had gone on the previous day. We weren't all very enthused to go. Some of us had wanted to go back to the school and play and relax. We had a choice to just have a tour of the cultural center or the full tour, but someone made our group laugh and all of us ended up taking the full tour. A lot of the youth weren't paying attention to what Pastor Ben and Brother Ryan had to say, and so when someone made the group laugh, we all went on the full tour. I actually learned and somewhat enjoyed the experience though.

The Lakota Indians were the Sioux people we served mostly on the reservation. We learned that they didn't have a sewer plant. Instead, they had two punns (ponds?) that filled with water and was pumped through both punns. I didn't quite get the entire process, but something like that. We also went to the cultural center. We stood outside for quite some time.

Pastor Ben told us the history of the Lakota. They are a warrior society. They are known for fighting ferociously. The children even play war games that are very rough. He even performed a marriage ceremony. He chose two people from our team. Kalyn was given the Indian name of Miniwashtae. Pastor Ben was pretending to be her father, and he knew that it was time for Miniwashtae to get married. He found some suitors. Chase was the lucky one. He was named Falling Rain. Pastor Ben had also named some other people from our group. Grant became Red Dog, Jonathan was Big Beaver, and Jake was Laughing Bear. Anyway, Miniwashtae and Falling Rain were chosen to be the married couple. Miniwashtae had gotten sick and to ask the spirits for healing over her, Falling Rain performed a ritual. He had to tie himself with the help of another person, to a tree. He had to stick two long sticks into his chest flesh. It made the shape of an x. He had to dance until the sticks came out or something like that. I bet it was gory and would've been so difficult to watch. This was just an example and acted out, so thankfully, it really didn't happen. Pastor Ben spoke a little while longer about the Lakota history after this. We went inside the cultural center. Then, he spoke and showed us some items that were displayed. There was a tomahawk, a buffalo skull, and a few other items too. The buffalo is a very special and important symbol to the Lakotas. After finishing at the cultural center, we all piled into the bus again.

Our last few tour spots we drove by were a piece of land that had many paths or roads where houses could be built and Chinatown which had pieces of recycled China in the ground. 
The tour probably lasted for two hours. There's a lot of history. 

We finished the day off with a team meeting about the day and relaxed before going to sleep. I'd consider this day as a productive one.